The Tragic Fruit of Non-Cessationist Theology True Story #1 Nina Rodrigues is a little town in the interior of the Brazilian state of Maranhão. It is small, but very well kept. The populace is traditional—mostly Roman Catholic, but there are also a few Charismatic churches. In one of these Charismatic congregations not too long ago…
In case you missed it, or are American, Brazil beat Chile to advance t the World Cup finals yesterday. The score was 3 to 0. Thus, at the house where we watched the game, the following scene was repeated three times: For some reason, Brazilian player Kaka is a special favorite among the young ladies….
Last night was the final presentation of the Amiguinhos de Jesus, a puppet ministry that began sixteen years ago. Incidentally, our last presentation was at the Faith Baptist Church in Juazeiro–also the site of the first presentation “way back in the day”. I mentioned this to one of our puppeteers, and her response was “Wow!…
Here are some pictures given to me by one of our students of the Intentional Discipleship seminar and Theologcial Conference. Here is another picture of me translating for John A. Stewart. Notice how I am “one with the microphone”. Every day we began the session with prayer for the progress of the Gospel in different…
After yesterday’s post I had not expected to return to the subject of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God any time soon. However, as I perused the blog of Mrs. Cardoso today (morbid curiosity led me to add it to my RSS feed reader), I was surprised to see a post singing the…
An alert reader recently sent me some information about a new church in Houston, Texas called the Succeed in Life Center. A quick perusal of the website shows that the pastor is one Renato Cardoso–a distinctively Brazilian name. Hmmmmm. A church in Houston being pastored by a Brazilian? Not impossible, but definitely…interesting. One automatically wonders…
As we hiked around the city of Caririaçu the other day, Nathanael and I happened on what appeared to be a dead end street. Curious as to why the city government decided to end the street at that location–with a large neighborhood just beyond–we walked toward the fence. When we reached it, we discovered that…
Beginning tomorrow you will be able to follow the adventures of Missionary Max here on this blog. Several years ago I made a brief foray into fiction, trying to write the chapters of the story as I went. After a short period of time I abandoned this as impractical. For the last two years I…
Missionaries who leave their homeland to work in another country almost always carry with them political baggage. They will be asked to explain or justify the actions of the leaders of their nation of origin. And this is not limited to current events. I still get asked why the US found it necessary to bomb…
I have been meaning to do this post for some time. Several months ago the son of one of our first BMM missionaries here in Brazil sent me some photos and post cards that date back to the 1930’s. Among the photos were a set of postcards from Belem. As I looked through the cards…